Reading Potion

If we excluded Number One Hope and counted the three generations from Number Two through Number Four, each Hope had lasted an average of three to four months.

But in reality, it was impossible to determine when Number Two Hope had appeared, or whether each Hope had lasted the same amount of time.

Only Wilbur probably knew the timeline in greater detail, but asking too many questions might seem suspicious...

Hope casually chatted with Lavinia about the previous Hopes, referring to his predecessors as "back when I was around."

He learned that Number Four Hope liked fish, Number One Hope had been adorable as a child, and one of the Hopes between Number Two and Number Three had once sworn, "One day, I'll never eat canned peas again."

Hope felt rather sorry for the poor guy. He had never made it to the day when he could escape canned peas; now, his life or death was unknown.

"When did you bring this notebook over?" Hope showed Lavinia the Common Herb Collection.

He wasn't worried that Writer Hope had secretly gotten hold of it himself. After all, the book hadn't been hidden at all; it had been left openly in the room.

"Have you filled it up already?"

Lavinia casually flipped through the book.

"Yes." He had filled it up ages ago, of course, but Hope didn't argue the point.

"It must've been... five or six months ago. You asked me to find it for you. Do you want another one?"

Five or six months... Based on the timeline, Writer Hope was most likely Number Three Hope, but Hope couldn't be sure yet, so he would keep calling him "Writer Hope" for now.

"No, thanks," Hope said.

Lavinia was ready to leave.

Before she did, Hope brought up the newspaper. Lavinia readily agreed, but only starting tomorrow—and Hope would have to do for her what he had done today.

"Do what I did today?" Hope asked, puzzled.

"Split your food with me... Well, except the canned peas. You can keep those for yourself."

Was she never going to feel full?

After cycling between staring blankly at the ceiling and reading the Common Herb Collection several times, Hope finally made it to nightfall.

Neither Wilbur nor Lavinia came to "visit" Hope again in the meantime.

He even dared to teleport to the roof and breathe some fresh air for a while, though he was so nervous the whole time that he nearly pressed his ear against the roof, afraid he might miss the sound of footsteps or a knock at the door.

When the time seemed right, Hope first returned to the Rose Garden, then immediately came back to his room with nothing but Elizabeth's Pocket Watch.

Nine thirty-three.

He didn't head straight to Old Williams's rooftop to brew the Reading Potion because brewing it would take relatively more time, and Hope wanted to wait until it was later.

He pressed his eyes close to the little pocket watch. When a person was bored, even counting the seconds as the hand went around could become entertaining.

Nine thirty-four and five seconds...

He rolled over...

Nine fifty-five and seventeen seconds...

He rolled over more times than he could count...

Eleven fifty and one second...

Hope felt the time was right. First, he freed himself from the handcuffs, then tossed them under the bed. That way, if anything unexpected happened, he could pretend he'd crawled under the bed to look for something, giving himself a chance to explain.

He took the Steel Pen and contract paper from beneath the bedside table and carried them with him. After thinking it over, he also took his water cup.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw that clouds had covered the moon.

The slip of paper with the potion recipe written on it lay still at the edge of the rooftop, shivering in the breeze. Hope hadn't put it away properly last night, yet somehow it still hadn't blown off.

Although he had already memorized its contents, Hope read it over again:

"Five grams of Star Hemp, ten grams each of dried red, white, and yellow rose petals, five hundred grams of water, and one page of paper with writing on it.

"Boil for thirty minutes, then let cool naturally."

Hope folded the recipe twice along its original creases and put it among the waste paper in the storeroom.

There were quite a few old newspapers in the storeroom, but Hope didn't dare take even one back with him to read.

Old Williams's ingredients were still there: dried red, white, and yellow rose petals, and Star Hemp. It seemed they now belonged to Elizabeth. He would have to tell her next time he saw her...

Using someone else's belongings first and asking permission later was rather impolite, but Hope had no other choice.

He could get water downstairs. The only question was whether it needed to be ordinary water or distilled water.

It probably wasn't distilled water... There was no distilling equipment here, and no packaged distilled water nearby... He could try using ordinary water first.

Hope already knew that even taking the ingredients in the recipe directly could suppress the toxicity of Star Hemp, so even if ordinary water didn't work, the consequences wouldn't be too serious.

The most important ingredient was the page covered in writing.

Hope found a blank sheet of paper in the storeroom. After some thought, he also tore off half a page of newspaper without any pictures.

He decided to try using a newspaper printed in New Federation language first.

Whether or not the Reading Potion had a translation function, he first had to make sure he could brew it successfully.

Using New Federation language would naturally let Hope gain the ability to "read faster" if the potion worked.

Using Russian directly wouldn't have the same effect. Hope didn't know Russian, so if he still couldn't understand it after taking the potion, he wouldn't know whether the potion lacked a translation function or he had made a mistake while brewing it.

A small scale sat on the table, its weights slightly rusty. This put Hope at ease—the weights on a scale were very precise things, especially the tiny one- and five-gram weights. Rust would seriously affect their accuracy.

The rusty weights meant Old Williams hadn't been as meticulous when brewing potions as Hope had imagined. He must have had more of a "good enough" attitude and not cared much about exact measurements.

If the recipe was forgiving, Hope wouldn't have to worry too much about failing.

Once he had weighed the ingredients and was about to turn on the heat, Hope froze for a moment, then smiled.

He had actually forgotten that Old Williams even used a gas stove and a small iron pot.

Knowing that, Hope relaxed too. He quietly waited for the mixture of ingredients and paper in the little iron pot to turn into a potion imbued with supernatural power.

Every so often, he stirred the contents with the wooden stick beside the pot.

When Hope had watched cartoons, the witches stirring their cauldrons had looked wicked beyond belief. But now that he was doing the same thing himself, he realized it wasn't much different from stirring stew. More than helping the ingredients blend together, it mainly kept the leaves from settling at the bottom of the pot and burning from the heat.

During a pause in his stirring, he used "uncertainty" to reach the storeroom and grabbed a few old newspapers to pass the time. Most of them were about politics, with a few speeches by politicians mixed in.

Reading this would certainly help Hope understand how this country worked... But he knew nothing about politics, and reading this stuff only reminded him that it was already past midnight and he should be asleep.

Just as he was about to give up on finding anything entertaining in the papers, an article taking up a sizable portion of a newspaper called the Arkham Tribune caught his eye:

"Best University—Miskatonic University Celebrates Its 235th Anniversary"